hafacenturyncounting

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Archive for the tag “truth”

27 Feb 2015
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Twice A Child IV-Acceptance

This is my current situation; I am weak, my doctor has told me I need to take even more medication and now I cannot even escape my reality for a few hours by going out unaccompanied. What would you do? That seems an easy enough dilemma, I say. However, I forgot to mention a little thing I am 81 years of age. When presented with this problem at our own individual ages, we think what we would do at the only age we truly can identify with, we exist in the now. Therefore the solution I come up with, may very well NOT be the solution needed here.

I think get yourself healthy first, that means following doctors orders, resting taking your medication. Hey but I only have one prescription to take, once a day. Additionally, I CAN come and go as I please. Maybe the unorthodox way is not completely out-of-order. Sometimes in spite of things, we as individuals do know a little something about self. There is the basic underlying fear something bad or worse could happen if these restrictions are not honored.  However, we as the helpers have to put ourselves in those elder shoes and realize how the confined feeling would affect us. “Toss caution to the wind”.. well maybe sit it outside so it can gradually pick you up and blow along slowly.

Human Beings will do amazing, unusual, desperate things in order to make themselves feel some level of comfort/self-comfort. Our aging loved ones may hold onto items or a routine that makes them feel like their situation is not changing unless they themselves let/make it change (i.e. needing to pay bills daily OR using that as an excuse to get out of  the house).

Patience,vigilance, and understanding will prove to be your double-edge-sword. Perhaps you will do daily battles with it. Words of caution, you may not always win. Now is a time when vantage points and perspective take on an entirely new meaning, and my friends our is not the only view involved here.

Posted in Order of Appearance and tagged , ,
18 Feb 2015
1 Comment

I Need God To Fix This

Having one of those mornings? Well how about”having one of those years”? Waking to the unknown of the day, feeling like throwing the covers over your head and asking the Heavens for a “do-over” long before you know what lies ahead.

Well you have been on this Earth for some 50+ years now so I imagine there have been one or two days like this during your lifespan. This middle-age thing we are experiencing daily is a trip all by-its-lonesome. I applaud those of you who proclaim you have remained steadfast and true to God. This is faith in it’s truest form; do not deceive yourself, for if it is not true your very beliefs will come back to haunt you. Having more than what I deem to be enough or my share of the challenges that make getting out of bed a task, I pondered about this place that I now occupy physically and mentally.

The realization of how every-little-thing was interconnected seemed to daunt me.  My problem solving skills were placed on screen before me. I saw the optimist, I saw conniver, I saw the escapist and I pretty-much saw them in that order. Life is cyclic and I knew that the individuals that I charged with solving my problems appeared in that order, not by chance but by choice. Choices I was making when I told myself, I had no choice.  Then the debate began between conscious and sub-conscious,  is the medication real or is it a placebo.

As the world crumbles around me, I see myself standing in the middle of the road dodging debris falling around me. Lots of near-misses. In an out-of-body way, I wonder why do I bother moving. Surely one quick hit and all of my problems will be no more. The answer is so very simple and basic. I WANT TO LIVE! I am NOT unique that is what human beings are about.

It is NOT in our nature to give up, that is why we fight so hard, for so long, for so many different things. If we had it our way the easy way would, chances are, be the only way. We have been raised in a society that strives to have it quick and simple and why is that so appealing to us? Well that is easy, so we can go on to do more things with the time we already do not have enough of/for. Yet when things don’t go our way, we revert to the childish behavior we were constantly told we have to abandon when we became adults. Sometimes our brains don’t get the memo and the blanket goes over our head, again.

However, we were born to accomplish one great thing and given plenty of time and resources to complete our task. By-the-way YOU don’t get to be the judge of what is determined great. Now beaten, now lost, now confused, where are your tools?  God has given us all we need but he has also allowed time for the distraction; the distraction to teach us the importance beauty, patience, and rest. In the midst of the storm don’t look away, look toward.

Posted in Ecumenically Speaking and tagged , ,
29 Jan 2015
2 Comments

Twice A Child II-Anger

When you fall from grace there generally is no cushion.  No matter how you brace yourself the landing is rough. A sudden abrupt thud. Examining the some of the stages we experience with this aging process, I think this is one of the more difficult ones, but to be honest one really isn’t better than the other. They are all emotional avalanches.

There he or she is, they look remotely familiar at times they look exactly like this person you know and love, then something strange occurs. You tell yourself how ridiculous this is, how out of character this person is behaving, what you have to realize is they are no more in control of this change than you are. Oh how you long for the person you used to know. At times you may get a glimpse of that individual again, but as unpredictable as a gust of wind they will disappear on you. Then you must realize the look is what looks, are surface impressions and superficial. Your loved one is transitioning and for your own sake you had better try to as well. I am not talking exclusively about death here.

I warn you take you hearts off your sleeves, because these folks you were once so close to, will pull no punches. From nowhere the accusations fly, ” You talk to me any kind of way, You don’t care about me, You took my money, You don’t respect or love me, I wish I was dead.. Venomous hurtful things said for reasons unknown, but then you have to try to understand this is not someone who is completely in control anymore.  I cannot say that enough, because you will be challenged by this, repeatedly and you must be strong for it will take a lot out of you. They are floating in and out of awareness, without warning attitudes and temperaments change. The very next day they will not remember how ugly they treated you, so you MUST try to forget it as well.

I think because we live(d) our lives without being told or being taught it is okay to get mad/angry/be upset with people we love, we don’t know how. We fight back these feelings, we feel guilty about having them and grow frustrated with behavior of ourselves and them. If you have experience in “fighting fair” you MAY be better equipped, but note the word “MAY”. Furthermore, there is NOTHING fair about what is happening to your loved one. It simply is happening.

Try to be kind to them and yourself. Look at this experience as one that shall pass, for it will, and be able to share with another person information to give them solace as they travel the path you have gone down. My BFF is big on random acts of kindness; well the next time you see an elderly person who looks lost take a moment out and talk to them, they have something to say and your listening could make all the difference that is needed in their world. A stranger may have to help someone you love one day, find their way back to where they belong.

 

 

Posted in Order of Appearance and tagged , ,
21 Aug 2014

Love People

Sometimes I surf the internet. One picture will motivate me to visit a site next thing I know it is midnight.  I have been noticing over the past decades there are a lot of really gorgeous children being born.  Is it the grandmother in me? Perhaps, but I see these little happy folks and I cannot help but smile. They are the best of humanity, they are what we all are until life and cynicism ruins us. They look at a flower and it’s color makes them happy. They don’t run from or smash it because of it’s particular shade they adore and admire it just as it is. We adults in turn have nothing but praises for the babies, “aren’t you the prettiest, sweetest, smartest, most talented little one we have ever seen. And we don’t care who you belong to.

Fast forward about 15 years, those beautiful wonder-filled beings are now starting to make decisions and voice their opinions. They are now met with, “You don’t know what you are talking about, Why don’t you behave better, What are you listening to and What is that you are wearing?” They go from the Apples of Society’s Eye to Menaces to Society in less than two short decades. All the while their main critics forgetting they once occupied that very same place in life. The reason being no one wants to stay in that place of confusion, indecision, and turmoil. We wonder what is wrong with our children as they begin to mature. We love them always, but are challenged to like them. I recall a woman I saw many years ago at the mall in Alpharetta;she was neat and tidy, dressed in a suit, had corporate America written all over her. She was carrying a Louis Vutton purse and every hair was in place. As she approached the counter in the young men’s department at Rich’s(region department store now out of business) this surly, thin,  greasy haired young man dressed in goth-type clothing came to and stood next to her. I expected her to jump out of her skin because he was so far away from who she was, but after a moment you knew this was not just someone she knew, this was her child. The were a curious pair walking out of the store. I shook my head and thought, “You never know..”

These two made me think of how we judge and make decisions about OUR young people. We have issues with our own children, so it is hard to imagine us being any more tolerant of someone elses’ and guess what, we aren’t. Do any of you recall that time in your life? The time when your music basically made your parents or most any adult grimace at the very least. The time when self discovery was coupled with fear and insecurity. The time when your excuse of being young and not responsible was fading into, ” It is your fault, You know better.” The thing that MUST be taken into consideration here is, it was a time of transitions.

Time marches forward some more. Now we have an adult he may be in our workplace being difficult or perhaps she has gotten into trouble and landed herself in jail. The significant thing here in both of these cases is; once these throwaways, these social irritants, were adorable sweet faced babies that we  all loved to love.

Too bad we don’t get to transform ourselves from beautiful-adorable baby to upstanding-citizen adult. However, that is  not our reality. We are human and we are flawed. Your flaws look a lot more serious than mine because I am judging, but then I must consider that door swings both ways that I am also on the receiving end of judgment. My son often speaks of loving without condition; from a Christian point of view, this is a difficult goal but at least it is a goal that is presented to us on a  weekly basis( although it should be a constant basis). Perhaps if we ALL task ourselves with this loving one another without condition on a regular-targeted basis, we could get closer to the goal as well. As human beings if we aren’t challenged we vegetate and die, so it is with ideas and concepts. Take the challenge and make your contribution towards solving the problem of just Loving People without condition and stipulations.  “Shoot for the moon” here, people “because if you miss you will still land among the stars…”

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19 Aug 2014
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A Matter Of Trust

Have you ever been betrayed? Of course you have. You recall how badly you felt. There was a lot of emotion involved no doubt, there was anger, there was hurt and pain. Time was the only thing that would help to neutralize or erase the damage done. Then once the time had passed, what was necessary to get that individual back in good graces with you. Hold that thought and carry it with you throughout this piece.

Being a 54 year old American black woman, I am once again having to reach back and  regain my composure. I have a husband, I raised 2 sons, I have brothers, I have nephews, and then there are my friends; I must try to exist with a real monster hanging over my head, and over the heads of people I know, love , and care about. Understand the use of the word monster here, and if you don’t get it, look it up.  Fear… monsters are effective because they control us with  our very own fear.  They need not do a thing, but make their presence known and our very own psyche will do the rest.

There are some of us  who want more, so we choose to go to where the monsters can be made more tangible. Theme parks, haunted houses, and movies help provide us with a hands-on scare. However, you have to say one is still able to get a portion or even their fill and walk away. That is not the case with the monster I spoke of earlier though. This monster is ever present lurking in the dark corridors, the recesses of your mind, and maybe to some of your surprise he comes at you in broad daylight too. You don’t know exactly how to fight him because the mention of his name suggests, you are imagining things, monsters aren’t real. The “naysayers” would have you believe just that, I ask you how do you explain the dastardly deeds then? How do you defend and protect yourself from something like that. The moment you give in and say,” well maybe I am over-reacting, maybe it isn’t the way I think it is, you get hit once again. Later you ask yourself how am I ever supposed to be able to trust again.

The human spirit is resilient, but it can only be trampled over, ripped and torn, beaten up and knocked down so many times, before one invariably will lash out. The monster never thinks about that, the monster is always in the pursuit mode. Yet think of the many monster films you have watched over the years, in the end the monster usually get destroyed.

You have to realize we are talking about real monsters here, not the ones in the movies.  The monster that has treated us badly, the monster that has abused us, the monster that has lied to us and we have gotten hurt because of the monster. Then the monster says, “I have changed. I am not like I used to be, I will show you.” After all the monster has done to us, how do we forgive him, how do we begin to trust that which has been so terrible to us, when all we have is a history of being mistreated. All we want from the monster is to be left alone and at volatile times we  do want to see the monster destroyed in order for us to go back to our lives and just live. Even though we’d love to have the same outcome as in the movies, this is real life. We still have the tendency to expect the same result in real life as we get in the movies, it does not always hold true.

 

Posted in How We Relate and tagged ,
07 Aug 2014
1 Comment

Yes It Can And Does Happen In Your Neighborhood

Listening to the crickets chirp, watching the lightening bugs float around the night, a slight hint of gardenia in the air, and sporadic sounds of life. We have several family of deer living among us; rabbits and chipmunks try to stay out of the way of the cats, various dogs walk their owners during daylight and night time. Tonight an eerie shadow is cast upon us, the inhabitants of this safe enclave  just a little north of Atlanta. I look down to the end of my block and the un-naturally  lit, lifeless house serves as a reminder of the events of the day.

How many times have you watched the news and heard someone who is interviewed say,’This kind of thing doesn’t happen here. This is such a nice neighborhood”. I cringe each time. I say, ” What are you thinking idiot, your community is immune to bad occurrences?”Today I would have been that idiot. While I may have not verbalized my feelings, it certainly was my thought pattern and behavior as well.

I  heard the beeping sound of a truck backing up at 6:30 A.M.; it is trash day, but still early. The blue and red lights flashing  from various police as well as fire department services illuminate the block. Yellow tape surround the house in question, that is NOT a good sign. About a dozen officers enter the location and about five minutes later they emerge, but there is an odd scene as a woman being rolled out in a sitting position follows. I see a few familiar faces down the block but cannot get to them because the police have created a barricade on my block.

Later we would find out there was a murder and a home invasion. Later we would find out the two children who lived there survived but they we not unharmed one physically but both impacted psychologically. Later we would find out the perpetrators were still at large. Later we would find out it was the first and only murder that had happened this year in our fair city. However for now we are in a state of shock, denial, and disbelief.

You might ask, why are we all so disheveled;  I have many times when I was simply an observer of others in similar neighborhoods. What makes us think that simply because we live among those we deem to be upstanding citizens, people who keep their lawns tidy and their houses painted, that their lives are as spotless as these home’s exteriors. We bought into an illusion and in that illusion good people you live next door to don’t argue, don’t have abuse going on, don’t hoard animals and debris. The people we live down the block from mind their own business, but they look out for their neighbors. We can leave our doors unlocked, parcels can sit on the porch or in the driveway without  the worry of someone who does not belong here entering our places or taking our things. We wave at passersby so they will know we are good folk, but we are watching you.

We have all allowed ourselves to forget the common denominator, we are all just people not immune to the flaws and frailties that make us all human. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in our kind of community, but somehow it just did.

Posted in Order of Appearance and tagged ,
28 Jul 2014

It Is Better To Remain Silent

Sometimes words are just too much. I may not be the”brightest light on the Christmas tree”, but I am certainly not a full blown “power outage” either. People think they know you and oftentimes will express this verbally, but situations will expose the real truth. As time goes on you realize it is not always necessary to  give everything you have away, not all of your opinions, not all of your feelings, and not everything you know/or think you know.  I have honed this skill carefully and use it regularly. Although, this is true there are still people in your life who will challenge this ability of yours to keep things to yourself.

This is because people ALL need to have a “voice”, we all want to be heard. Some require and auditorium filled to capacity  in order to “mic it out”, that is not to say what these folks want to convey is any more significant than those who choose a quiet one-on-one intimate talk. The talkers aren’t always the best listeners, and being realistic listening is an acquired skill. We grow tired of being in the perceived inactive state, because we are impatient.

My latest experience that prompted this piece came as the result of someone I know, and THEIR “guilt trip”. Additionally, it is the beginning of one of my father’s favorite sayings and it’s meaning eluded me until I was older due to a very short attention span with “adult old sayings”. Little did I know one day I’d be quoting those very same words.

I bet there was an occasion or two in your childhood that you broke something. Maybe you were playing in  the house, maybe you touched something you were told not to. Once it was broken then you tried to hide the fact YOU were totally and completely responsible for this mishap. Maybe you hid the object hoping it would not be missed, maybe you reported you “discovered” it broken to draw the attention away from self (not an option for the only children out there), maybe you outright lied, or maybe you blamed it on someone else. While none of these is the honorable thing to do, we are humans and what we imagine is generally far worse than what actually will take place. This is expected behavior in a child and though it is undesirable one can understand.

Yet the same behavior in an adult is not understood nor tolerated, sorry you don’t get a pass because once you enter adulthood the “token/chip” you carry  with you at all at all times is responsibility. Now you can deny it if you want to but it changes nothing. YOU ARE LYING TO YOURSELF! I have come to know this individual for blaming mistakes, bad behavior, etc. on someone other than self it still does not take away from how annoying the characteristic is. The long term result is you do not believe anything, absent of documented proof, this person says. The more he talks the further away from what actually occurred, you become We are at the point that an omission would be welcome.

As I recognize I am NOT the only person who knows a being like this, I offer the advice of the old saying that is timeless(as most of them are).

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove ALL doubt.”

Posted in How We Relate and tagged , , | Leave a comment
13 Jun 2014

My Life Through Malls

hafacenturyncounting's avatarhafacenturyncounting

As I sat watching my husband and granddaughter ride the merry-go-round I was transported back  through time and space to Torrance, California;  her father was about 3 years old riding this imported merry-go-round with his “Auntie Jennifer” (I even have a picture) at the “Old Towne Mall”. That mall housed old fashioned shops, glass-bowers, etc. ; it never caught on, it survived for decades but it slowly disappeared into oblivion like the “Carson Mall”, “The Hawthorne Mall”, “Gwinnett Place Mall”, to name a few I had encounters with. However, even before that as a teen when the mall phenomenon was just catching on my life-long friend(i.e just like a sister, only our parents are different) Kim and I spent many Saturdays at the nearby malls. We would spend hours there with money that would barely buy lunch, no wait  a cookie and a drink now…

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13 Jun 2014

Looking Forward

hafacenturyncounting's avatarhafacenturyncounting

It was that time again, the annual physical.THANKFULLY! Now I am not one of those folks who dreads doctors and hospitals. I have been a rather healthy individual. I have had bouts with weight, but other that that I have been blessed. I was also blessed to be back in a “situation”that allowed me to once again have health care benefits.

I start the process late January early February. I did the vision, dental, and medical within days of one another. Everything was as I suspected. I got contact lenses for the first time and I had a couple of cavities to be filled.I came through the annoying/uncomfortable female screenings with flying colors. All in all for someone who has not been under a doctor’s care since 2009, I have to say I was happy.

Now the fact that I could lose 15 to 20 pounds did not make me…

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24 May 2014
3 Comments

Ooops I’ve Said Too Much

And then you get the look. You know it is too late the taste of Doctor Scholl’s foot powder almost chokes you, but it is too late you know you should have stopped talking at least one sentence ago.

The stupid things, the word regurgitation; if only somehow you could take those things back, a rewind if you will. There is nothing magical or mysterious about saying a mean and hurtful thing; your moment of  “telling it like it is” may be subject to all kind of review from all kinds of sources, even though the intention was other than that. You put it out there and now you must deal with  ramifications.

The truth is the truth hurts, at times and is down right difficult at others. Some days you throw in the towel and say you’re going to throw caution to the wind, but then what happens when the wind changes directions and it come back in your face.  Are you really ready for that?

When one writes there is material all around for you to pick and choose from, in the non-fiction forum we battle with being too sickeningly sweet to being to morbidly real. Even falling somewhere in between can be dangerous, because you can get stuck there. This is the where the point is driven home. Moderation once again is the solution. We need balance in our lives, our very make-up dictates this. The next time you feel compelled to say something that occurs to you might be  taken in a way that you don’t necessarily mean for it to be taken.  Hold off, your haste may later require  your foot being surgically removed from your mouth.

Posted in How We Relate and tagged , ,

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